


Any Day

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, Domestic, Family, Fix-It, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This time—just this once—everything goes right. </p><p>[Major spoilers for 2003/Conqueror of Shamballa.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Day

**Author's Note:**

> Nine out of ten dentists agree that you shouldn't read this if you value your orthodontic health. There will be an explanation of the locational choice at the end, which you are welcome to ignore entirely. XD

Perhaps there are a thousand, a million, an infinity of universes. Perhaps there is one where everything is right.

Ed surges out of the dark ship like a meteor, staggering and dizzy, with a metal arm. Alfons wishes he could open his eyes wider to see the comet’s tail, but their lids are so heavy; he’s so tired from coughing a puddle onto the floor. Tired is better, of course. Tired is better than dead, and he owes this to Edward. He owes this to the pocket-watch Ed wore, which Ed handed to him when he murmured, “Don’t forget me,” to which Ed said, “Nuh-uh—when you’re famous, _you_ remember _me_.”

Alfons slipped it into his breast pocket, half-turned, and watched his dream take flight. For a fraction of a moment, he thought the jolt was his own heartbeat, but then the impact shocked him, winded him, bruised his ribs and set his lungs to heaving.

So now Ed takes his hand and meets his tired eyes and says, “Alfons Heiderich, you owe me a new watch.”

Alfons works his throat. “You owe me an explanation. Maybe two.”

And then… the clatter, the armor, the other boy. Ed’s face opens like a flower in the sunlight, and Alfons senses that his heart has opened, too.

 

 

The years are short, and life is long. The air in California is clean, and Ed pretends that he hates undergraduates, and they have a narrow little house high on the hill. On a clear day, Alfons can see the Claremont Hotel like a grand white island; can see the city unfolded and shifting below them; can see the vast blue glimmer of the Bay. On any day when the sun rises, he believes in miracles.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has come to expect histrionics.

Ed drops onto the couch and lays the steel arm dramatically over his eyes. “No imagination, any of them. Not a square inch of viable gray matter in the entire lecture hall.”

Alfons has just finished filing his class’s midterm exams away in alphabetical order, which has liberated his attention in the nick of time. “Perhaps they just feel shy?”

“Don’t humor him,” Al says. He selects a particularly large apple from the bowl on the coffee table and fits it between his brother’s teeth as Ed draws breath to retort.

“I’m being serious,” Alfons says. “Ed, you are somewhat—how do I say—intimidating.”

Ed sits up, crunching very loudly on the apple, then speaking very loudly through his mouthful of it. “What do you mean, intimidating? I’m the nicest person I know, except for you, and maybe my dumb brother when he wants something.”

“I still don’t see why we can’t have cats,” Al says.

“You know damn well Alfons’s lungs are priority number one,” Ed says. “Plus cats stink.”

“ _You_ stink.”

“I don’t mean that you seem hostile,” Alfons says—although to an outsider Ed almost certainly does; one has to spend a long time in his company and in his confidences to realize just how soft he is beneath the spines. “I mean that you are… forceful. I think they merely fear your disappointment if they volunteer only to be wrong.”

“Then they’re unimaginative _cowards_ ,” Ed says.

“You are being very unfair,” Alfons says, struggling not to smile.

“He’s never fair,” Al says. “Not to students; not to cats; not to the doting, devoted brother who sacrificed everything to accompany him across _universes_ out of sheer adora—”

“I told you that you could get fish,” Ed says, “but you didn’t want them. I’m not being unfair—undergraduates are stupid. Hell, Alfons, if you like ’em so much, why don’t you marry ’em?”

“Because I am honorarily married to you,” Alfons says. “And our honorary wedding and honorary honeymoon were very… binding.”

Al rolls his eyes. “ _So_ glad I spent my last dollar getting the hotel room three floors down at the other end of the hall, _almost_ out of earshot.”

“Come on,” Ed says, eyes bright, grin brighter. “I don’t intimidate _you_ , do I?”

“Not now,” Alfons says, “but you did. You’re a wonder, Ed. You appeared from nowhere with your head full of strange, archaic words, and you threw yourself into my work—into my _life_ —with a kind of… _ferocity_ I had never even dreamt about. I had every right to be amazed, yes?”

“I guess so,” Ed says, his eyes going melted-butterscotch—all heat and sweetness. “You still think I’m amazing now that you know all the dirt on me?”

“More than ever,” Alfons says, and it’s true.

“Oh, _God_ ,” Al says. “I’m going to go take a walk. A long walk. To another state, maybe.”

“Don’t hurry back,” Ed says hazily.

“Barf,” Al says.

The front door slams.

Alfons smiles.

And everything is right.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I was going to have them end up at Stanford, but then I sorta fell in love with the idea of them having a house up at the top of the hill in Berkeley. If you've ever been, [you probably don't blame me](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/CampanileMtTamalpiasSunset-original.jpg). *__* Plus in poking around, I discovered that Berkeley was actually founded first, and that Oppenheimer was a professor there before he established the lab in Los Alamos, and then I stopped resisting. XD


End file.
